Homecoming

I went back to my Aikido classes after being off the mat for a really long time. I was pretty nervous about returning because unlike other aspects of my intellectual life when it comes to choreographed body movements my mind is a sieve. And as a nage I often feel like a deer caught in the headlights when the uke starts the attack. Freeze and rely on the universe not to hurt me tends to be my motto. However, that strategy doesn't really work for me underwater.

Once many years ago when I first began to scuba dive I went shark diving off the shipping lanes of southern California. I was in a cage and feeling fairly protected when a five foot blue shark swam right at me through the front two foot wide camera opening in our cage.  To the shark I was just part of the mackerel chum that bought him too our boat in the first place - but to me those teeth looked so sharp! I am sure the shark could see my frozen deer in the headlights stare. My breathing became more rapid and more shallow as I struggled to get enough air.  And just as I was about to pass out from hypoxia, my more experienced dive buddy calmly moved in front of me and gently tapped the shark's nose redirecting it out through the side camera opening of our cage. Disaster avoided in the beat of a second. And both shark and human were doing just fine! That's the day I learned that calm actions rather than frantic reactions can keep you, others and the surrounding sea life safe when things go wrong underwater. (Why Divers Panic - and How to Deal With It) However, I feel much more at home in water than I do on land where I often feel awkward and uncoordinated with the thought of social interactions sending me into prolonged periods of panic. It would be so much easier to stay off the mat. But alas Aikido, like diving, isn't something I can do alone.

Like many other employees in the world today what adjunct professors do is precarious work and I often let it consume my every waking moment.  Its an endless round of applying for jobs and prepping for classes that leaves little time for self development. I have all these long gaps in my training which always makes me nervous about returning to a weekly Aikido routine.  How long will it take for me to remember where to put my feet?  Why does irimi nage confound me? And seriously why is it so hard to move my hips?  Each time I return I always think that somebody at the dojo is going to yell at me about my long absences but instead I get hugs and genuine warm welcomes, which makes it even harder to quit.

On my first day back I went to a beginning class taught by Crystal whose ukemi is just simply spectacular. During warm ups, she asked everyone there to think about why they were practicing Aikido and what kept them coming back to the mat.  I had to really mull that question over because for me its complicated. There's so much about Aikido that reminds me of my mother - sometimes the emotions that come up during my practice can be overwhelming.  Part of me is there to fulfill her wishes that I have a "spiritual mind and body practice," and part me is there because she had to give up Aikido to be my mother. But what about the other parts of me?  I had to think about that question again today during Dennis' class when he asked us to think about what we hoped to achieve by practicing Aikido.

During class, Dennis demonstrated a really expansive standing forward and backward kokyu ho. The flow behind his movements is so inspiring.  When we paired off to practice them, Dennis came by and broke down the movements for us, using the analogy of the undertow you feel as a wave forms and then the spiral as it descends upon the beach. Blending with an ocean wave was something I could relate and aspire to. While I couldn't quite get the nuance of the technique, it did remind me that one of the goals I have for learning Aikido is to be as comfortable on land as I am in water. I want to be able to redirect the fear I have on land with a blend and a tap on the nose the way my dive buddy did in that shark cage all those years ago.